Fox’s new digital IP division is giving creators cash, ads, and distribution to make their next hit series

There’s been a lot of chatter lately about the increasing interweave of the creator industry and legacy entertainment. Often this chatter can pit the two against each other, painting creators as the takeover force that will replace Paleolithic Hollywood giants–but there are more and more legacy companies committing real resources to partnering with creators on IPs.

One of those companies is Fox Entertainment. In January 2025, it launched Fox Creator Studios, a digital-first division dedicated to working with established content creators from platforms like YouTube and TikTok.

A year later, it unveiled inaugural deals with a handful of food-focused creators, including Rosanna Pansino, Theorist, Little Remy Food, Jolly, and Sorted Food. That wave also brought in Gordon Ramsay, who co-founded production venture Studio Ramsay Global with Fox in 2021, to mentor creators and help develop their programming.

Now, Fox Creator Studios has announced another fleet of signings, including:

• TikToker Josh Richards, for seasons 2 and 3 of his sketch comedy series Read the Room
• automotive creator Emelia Hartford, for a series called Hot Laps, where she’ll interview Hollywood stars, athletes, and other celebs while high-speed track driving
• Speeed Co, the channel from former Donut Media faces James Pumphrey, Jesse Wood, and Zach Redpath, for an educational series called Then vs. Now that looks at products, experiences, and cultural habits across generations
• culinary enthusiast MyHealthyDish aka My Nguyen, for a family cooking series called My Daughters: Cooked starring Nguyen and her twin teenage daughters
• director/filmmaker Christina Richardson, for seasons 3 and 4 of her scripted vertical navigating-adulthood series Besties
• media company Mad Realities, for competition dating series The Love Pitch and culinary competition Picky Eaters
• and comedian Tom Segura, whose multi-project deal was announced in May

But what do these deals actually mean? Is Fox providing production resources? Funding? What are its end goals here?

Tubefilter’s very own Joshua Cohen and his co-host Lauren Schnipper asked all those questions and more on this week’s episode of their podcast Creator Upload. Fox Creator Studios’ head Billy Parks joined to give us an inside look at how the division works and Fox’s overall ambitions for creator collaborations.

“The long and short of it is we want to invest in creator IP,” Parks said. “We all know the creator economy and people making content on their platforms has been an amazing way to find audiences. We want to partner on those great ideas creators have and then help with our ad sales team and our distribution team to get things monetized.”

He pointed out that Fox has “a hundred years of history of helping creators” and that it’s now taking the same model it used with screenwriters, directors, and Hollywood stars, and “rebuilding that model for the creator economy.”

“We’re partnering on IP. We finance it. Creators are coming to us with ideas; we’re not coming to them with ideas,” he says. “We listen to what they want to make and why they want to make it.”

A lot of creator partners have come to Fox with data-backed ideas, he said, based on examples of what worked on their channels previously.

“And we say, ‘Great, go make it.’ No development, no, ‘Hey, what if you change this character,’ no going through it for several months,” he said. “[With Creator Studios], it’s like, here’s the capital. Go make it.”

From there, Fox and the creator “split the IP together,” he said. The shows then go out for distribution on social platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, and/or on the growing number of microdrama platforms. (Fox is also invested there: It took an equity stake in My Drama owner Holywater last year, and this past January inked a deal with Dhar Mann to create a whopping 40 new microseries.)

As for whether Fox Creator Studios provides production support, Parks said not so much. “We’re looking for creators that want to execute their vision on their platforms and generally they know how to do it,” he explained. “Every once in a while they’ll say, ‘Hey, this idea is bigger than I can handle,’ and we’ll work with them to get them a producer, but generally they’re YouTube, they’re endemic producers.”

Overall, Parks said, these first waves of creator partnerships have been “really telling of what we want to do.”

“There’s Tom Segura and then this new slate we’re announcing […] that is short-form creators who have tried IP and we’re like, ‘That’s really cool. Do you want to do more of those? Can we help with that?'” he said. “It’s just great ideas that they are really passionate about making and they think will work for their audience, or they would think they can build a net new audience with.”